


Simple Gifts

by jenni3penny



Category: Lie to Me (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-28 22:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16251356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenni3penny/pseuds/jenni3penny
Summary: I always meant for this to be a larger piece but it never grew any more than this. Hope you enjoy! “We're the only thing that we can't talk about with each other."





	Simple Gifts

_“It's the elephant in the room, isn't it?”_

_If she fidgets at the loosened thread on her skirt hem all that much more then she'll be unraveling more than just his self control, more than his fraying patience._

_She'll start to really unravel the aching truth of it, won't she?_

_“Always has been.” Her nails tick nervously against fabric again, perfectly manicured and painted a pretty opalescent, shining like the inside of some pearled shells, iridescent. “Hasn't it?”_

_“What, darling?” Cal asks, levers off the edge of his desk with purpose, intent. He leans forward and farther into her space so that he can grab onto that nervous hand and yank it away from its compulsive worrying. He pulls at her, jerks her up from her perch and keeps that hand still up by the grip of his own. “What's been?”_

_“Us.” Her eyes flick briefly over the way he's got their palms pressed up together and it's just a scant breath before she closes her fingers between his, fists her palm closed so that he's gotta match the movement. “This.”_

Aye-aye _. She's forcing his hand, figuratively and literally._

_And if she's going to tie their undone ends up and together, hell, he's gonna take true advantage of it. With both hands if he can manage it. “What about us? Eh?”_

_Cal tugs her closer, still clasping her left hand in his right. His other arm traps up on her waist and tucks her even closer but his focus is ever on her face. He watches her features as she enjoys the movement. First the surprise of the thing and then the absolute pleasure she takes in the way he just jams himself up into her space and tucks them intimately together. Her eyelids go half lower and then lax, her lips laze themselves into a smile. Smug, she is. Smug but happy, all pleasure and humor and there's something utterly dazzling about the angle of her jaw as she tips her mouth closer to his._

_“We're the only thing that we can't talk about with each other. Ironic but true, Cal.”_

_“Sure, and I'm the King of Siam,” he murmurs as he presses forward, drives her into dance step and then two. “Giving away white elephants.”_

_“White elephants?” She near laughs after she questions it, her voice all breathless humor. “Am I yours or are you mine?”_

_“Yes.” He can't save himself from grinning and looking a fool for her._

_“Yes to both?” The way she smiles as she asks, it's so intimate._

_The way she smiles is the first final clue he has to say that he's dreaming._

_“Yes to both,” he dreams to her._

_He's dreaming, he must be._

_It's the only reason she kisses him so quickly and so freely._

 

* * *

 

 

“Cal?” There's never been a fingertip touching his forehead that he's loved more than hers, and especially when he's half dazed and half awake and half sleeping still.

“Hmm?” Without shame he lifts his head farther into her touch, his body otherwise still on the couch cushions. He keeps his eyes shut, enjoys the way she teases into his hair briefly before the touch is gone.

Unconsciously, of course, he'd heard her come into the room. There's always a certain strike of her heels on his floor that makes it clear that it's Gillian and not another high-heeled employee. Because she sometimes walks the rooms of his life, his business, like she owns them herself. Which damn well annoys the hell out of him on some days, smothers him up, dampens. And on others he decides that maybe he should press the pause button on Atheism just long enough to praise Christ that she's in his life and still after all these years.

“You're dreaming.” There's an uninhibited smile in her voice and he remembers her, years ago, lecturing him on the innate human ability to hear the sound of a smile in another person's voice.

He equates the sound of a smile with her now, no matter what. Like she's the first person who allowed him to hear happiness.

She'd think him a sap if he ever told her that.

So he mugs a grin up at her, digging the back of his head harder into the arm of the couch as he finally opens his eyes to the way she's watching him. “Dreamin' of you.”

“Were you?”

“Mmm... And white elephants.”

Without asking permission he presses a flat palm out and strokes her hip, watches her face as she calmly allows him to do it and just quirks him a smile in patient response. “I don't wanna know, do I?”

“It's the elephant in the room, isn't it? You and I?”

She considers it a moment before answering and the world gets quiet, so hush. “It always has been. Since we first met.”

He simply blinks, his hand curling around hers, “You're an excellent dancer.”

Even in her silence he can hear how loudly she blushes and smiles.  
  
He's always heard her happiness louder than life.


End file.
